CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: DATING RAISES LOTS OF QUESTIONS FOR SINGLES

There's nothing like a relationship to help you get in touch with your Inner Prosecutor.

My friend Becky has a long list of "first date" questions she always asks.

Most are pretty basic: Where are you from? Where'd you go to school? Do you have family here? Do you have a job?

Does your parole officer know you're here, or does this count as "good behavior?"

Her questions get more probing as -- or in some cases, if -- there's a second, and then a third, date.

Where do you see yourself a year from now? Do you want children? Do you have children? How about a wife? Mistress? Significant others of either gender? Tattoos? Goldfish? Ferns?

I've been on job interviews that weren't that comprehensive.

"If they'd just give me a resume, we'd all save lots of time," says Becky.

I don't think she's kidding.

Becky has been dating even longer than I have, and the process has made her a little cynical.

Dates make everyone nervous. Even serial daters dread first dates, because there's no prospect more frightening than spending an evening with someone you might not want to get to know better.

My vision of Hell includes lots of little cafe tables filled with couples making first-date small talk for all eternity.

Scary, kids; very scary.

The problem is, you have to walk a fine line between an outright interrogation and casual conversation that tells you everything you need to know about the person you're meeting.

And the interrogation process doesn't stop once you get past the first few dates; they're a fact-finding mission. Lawyers call it "discovery," when you're sniffing out basic facts and laying the groundwork for potential persecution.

By the sixth or seventh date, you've got honest-to-God evidence to work with.

Meditation helps you find your Inner Child. There's nothing like a relationship to help you get in touch with your Inner Prosecutor.

If you're in the White House, dating sometimes leads to special prosecutors, but that's another column.

Lots of probing questions and the occasional plea bargain. Love is indeed a many-splendored thing.

Like the judge said to the bailiff: Bring in the next guilty so-and-so.

Anyone who's ever been on the receiving end of the dating interrogation process knows what I mean.

One minute, you're having a cappuccino and the next, you're in a smoke-filled room, there's a painfully bright light shining in your eyes and your potentially significant other is grilling you about how you spent Valentine's Day 1992 and any lingerie purchases still on your Visa bill.

Not to mention all those 1-900 numbers on your caller ID.

After a certain point, you realize you might as well just confess.

If you haven't committed any dating sins yet (not returning calls, lying for the wrong reasons, marriage) you will.

Some day, you will. It's like tearing the tag off a mattress. You don't even realize you've done it until after the tag is in your hand.

And you won't realize you've committed a cardinal sin of dating until you find yourself talking about that embarrassing skin problem on the first date, before the waiter's even brought your margaritas out.

Luckily, there's always absolution. And if that doesn't work, take the Fifth.

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.